Dawn of the Dreadfuls - Review and Contest

(I met Steve Hockensmith at the Bouchercon mystery convention last fall in Indianapolis. I was already a fan of his cowboy detectives Big Red and Old Red and regularly read his blog. He had dropped hints on the blog about a big, new, secret project he was working on but said he couldn't disclose details. To his credit, he didn't even give up the secret that he was writing a prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies when confronted about it in person. Well played, Steve. Here's my review of the book and then a link to a contest sponsored by the book's publisher Quirk Classics. Remember to mention our blog in the contest. I hope to publish an 'Impertinent Interview' with Steve in the near future. Check back.)

In being chosen to write the prequel to the publishing phenomenon that is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Steve Hockensmith was handed a formidable set of tasks. Write a prequel to a one-joke sendup of one of the most beloved novels in English literature. Continue the knockoff novels that have become a genre unto themselves: 19th Century classics mashed together with movie monster tropes. And while you're at it, Steve buddy, don't damage the franchise.

Good thing Quirk Classics picked the right guy for the job. It turns out that Hockensmith doesn't even owe Jane Austen a letter of apology for turning Jane and Elizabeth and the other Bennet sisters into katana-wielding ninjas. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls is funny, brash, and moves at a breakneck pace. Hockensmith makes even the living dead come to life on the page.

The cast is a laundry list of Jane Austen character types that you all recognize from movie and TV adaptations of her novels even if you haven't read the books: the demure daughter, the buffoonish nobleman, the doting father, the social-climbing mother, and the blustering military man. But, like the Amlingmeyer brothers in Hockensmith's Old West detective series (Holmes on the Range, On the Wrong Track, etc.), each character type is given its own twist. Just as his well-plotted series books make you believe that two Sherlock Holmes-loving cowboys can solve crimes in the manner of the great detective, Hockensmith keeps the thin premise ("Oh, it's Jane Austen, with zombies") from coming apart in the middle by keeping the action fast and furious.

The only effective way to deal with such a tissue-thin premise — it reminds me a lot of a drunken frat boy's take on the Monty Python skit "The Semaphore Version of Wuthering Heights" — is to not care too much when you poke holes in it. Or poke fun at it.

To make this work, Steve keeps the characters fresh, funny, and unpredictable. He is ultra careful to never let the plot sag. For in that saggy plot instant, a thoughtful reader might begin to wonder if this is all worth it.

There's never a doubt as to who will live and who will die. It's a PREQUEL. The people who are alive in the first book, which is really the second book, can't die in the second book because they already have appeared in the first book. There's never a doubt that love and virtue will triumph or that the lord of the manor will turn out to be a total prat. It's a JANE AUSTEN NOVEL. Or at least a take-off on one. It's what happens in a Jane Austen novel.

Hockensmith manages a couple of twists on the genre. For example, not all of the heroes turn out to be heroic. But it's all fair play and for fun. Read it in that spirit and you'll enjoy every page. Take it too seriously and maybe not.

And to all you serious-faced English majors out there (In the interest of full disclosure, I was, am, and always will be an English major, but not one of the serious-faced ones.), we wouldn't be able to laugh at this stuff if we didn't read, understand, and love the originals. So chill, OK?

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As I said above, Quirk Classics is running a contest to coincide with the publication of PPZ:DD. Here's the link to their site and the contest. Be sure to tell them you got there from our blog. Thanks!

Here's the details on what you'll win in the Quirk Classics contest:

One of 50 Quirk Classics Prize-Packs worth more than $100, each of which includes: 

o   A Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Journal

o   Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Postcards

o   Audio Books of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

o   An advance copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

o   A password redeemable online for sample audio chapters of Dawn of the Dreadfuls

o   A Dawn of the Dreadfuls Poster